Fighting Human Trafficking and Pornography Addiction with True
Love

In Jin MoonAugust 21, 2011

Good morning, brothers and sisters. How is everyone this morning?
I bring you greetings from our True Parents. They've just left Las
Vegas for Korea. On the 18th we celebrated the dedication of the Won
Mo boat, with many guests and dignitaries in Las Vegas, together with
our True Parents. It was a time for the guests to realize what a
remarkable genius our True Father is, in that, yes, he is a spiritual
leader, but by training he is a scientist.

Won
Mo Boat

The Won Mo Boat

He designed the Won Mo boat, which utilizes helium tanks so that
it's faster, lighter, and saves a whole lot of fuel. In our True
Parents' desire to reclaim leisure for the sake of the family, Father
is encouraging families to own one of these boats, to enjoy their
time with their family. Father wants to give each family a chance to
come together and experience something quite profound and beautiful.
And yet at the same time, in line with his ocean providence and his
desire to end world hunger, this is evidence of Father's way of
innovating all the pre-existing things that we have taken for
granted, making them technologically better. He is making boats work
a whole lot better for us so we can be free to have a great time, go
fishing at the same time, and bring something back that the family
can enjoy together.

It was an amazing time. Our True Parents were delighted and in
good spirits. Every time I see my father and mother, our True
Parents, I am so taken aback by their desire to give something of
themselves to the world, to present something to the world as a gift
to make humanity that much better.

In the name of the boat Won Mo, the Chinese character for Won
means circle, round, and Mo means mother. It is extremely
interesting how Father wanted to have the Won Mo dedication ceremony
after a special meeting of all the women gathered there for this
event. Father asked for a special workshop with all the women
present, again stressing the importance of the Pacific Rim Era and
the importance of women reclaiming their own dignity as eternal
daughters of God, to lead humanity in the right direction toward a
world of peace, harmony, and love.

When you take these two Chinese characters together, Won and
Mo, what Father envisions for the boat is really the symbol of
the universality of our True Parents. When you look at the dynamic,
circular relationship between a man and a woman, you realize that it
becomes complete when the man finally finds a beautiful wife,
somebody who can be a beautiful mother to the children. You realize
that circle and the family becomes complete when the feminine is
honored, when the feminine is also represented.

Again hearkening the theme of Pacific Rim Era, the women have to
finish the circle of humanity. What the world witnessed in terms of
the power, might, and strength of the masculine must end in a
beautiful circle, with women in different positions of leadership in
their families, their society, and their nation. Women are to be the
kind of people who can usher in the new millennium by emphasizing the
importance of compassion, love, and living for the sake of others,
and in doing so help raise men to be great eternal sons of God and
great fathers. By working together, women and men are to create a
world where they can reclaim their heavenly worth, their equal
dignity as eternal sons and daughters, and share the world with
everyone who thinks of each other as having similar value and
dignity.

When our True Father named this boat Won Mo, I felt that he is
signaling a time when the women have to come to the forefront as
agents of change, claiming their dignity and raising up all the
brothers, fathers, and sons to become better people.

Satisfying Spiritual and Physical Hunger

One of the most important missions our Father has engaged in is
developing the ocean providence, finding different ways to
manufacture fine fish products, as he has also emphasized the
importance of fishing. Unlike farming, in which you have a process of
planting seeds, waiting for them to grow, and waiting for the autumn
before we can share in the harvest of plenty, my father is thinking
about feeding the world every day. He sees the ocean as a treasure of
incredible natural resources that we have yet to really understand.

Our True Parents' desire is for humanity to be healthy and to find
its way out of poverty, out of the hungry existence that a lot of
men, women, and children are still suffering from. Yes, in this
modern day we see the effects of spiritual starvation, but in vast
areas of the world many millions of people still suffer from physical
starvation. This is what our True Parents want to address through the
ocean providence.

As I was experiencing the Won Mo boat dedication ceremony,
thinking back about all that our Father has done, I recalled how he
single-handedly brought in the sushi revolution here in America.
Before True Parents, nobody knew what eating raw fish was all about.
Twenty years ago, if you'd suggested going to a restaurant to eat raw
fish, people would have looked at you as if you were mad. But now,
with all the different fisheries that Father created, all the
hundreds of sushi restaurants he has created around this country,
sushi has become the "in" food, the food that's healthy,
that all the "beautiful" people enjoy. It's a fashionable
thing to eat nowadays.

Our True Father has made amazing innovations, even in the method
of fishing. I've shared with brothers and sisters how our True Father
has introduced hand-line fishing when it comes to catching bluefin
tuna, which is still utilized to this day. With the constant design
genius of our True Father, he continues at the ripe old age of 92 to
design and manufacture boats that are so much more efficient and
effective. He's trying single-handedly to be the agent of change that
can give the world something and take it to a better place.

When I think about the world we are immersed in – this
technologically incredible and powerful world – we have
everything at our fingertips in this superpower of America. The
Internet has given us access to a lot of different things that we
never had access to before. If we want things, we can get them
instantaneously. We can look for things and find them on the
Internet. The things that were even taboo are available on the
Internet. We're flooded with all these opportunities.

The only thing that a lot of us feel we need to do is satisfy our
hunger. Yes, we have our physical hunger, we have our emotional
hunger, and, yes, we have our spiritual hunger. In one form or
another, a lot of men and women in our world are suffering from
hunger. When I thought about this, about the difficult economic
recession we are living through, I did a little research on the
Internet, wanting to find out – in this hungry state of
humankind immersed in one of the worst economic recessions of our
time – what continues to be successful? What is the most
profitable thing during these times?

My research yielded two things that I found highly interesting.
The two things that continue to grow and prosper in terms of making
huge profit in times of difficulty and economic recession are
churches and human trafficking. I thought it was interesting in that,
yes, many times in this modern day people feel somewhat at odds with
the fast-paced, cold, technologically advanced world, and they're
seeking for some spiritual comfort food, spiritual soul food. They go
to churches because they crave this comfort of the soul.

The church is in the business of saving souls. The spiritual
deprivation, the coldness of the world that people might feel is
somewhat taken care of when people go to church. The promise that
somehow the divine would always look after every one of us is a
wonderful promise to a lot of people, and that's why they go to
church, they tithe, and they want to hope for something better.

But when we're talking about brothels or human trafficking
becoming extremely profitable at a time when we are suffering severe
economic recession, we realize that this is an area of our society
that exploits the soul. It destroys the soul of individuals and turns
them into empty carcasses, the living dead that we see all around.

A Shocking Documentary on Human Trafficking

I was thinking of my friend who is a famous documentary filmmaker
who produces a lot of shows for the major networks, especially HBO.
One of his friends is a musician who was invited to perform in
Moscow, and he went there to perform at one of the clubs. While there
he met a Russian translator who was 17 or 18. She was extremely
excited to meet someone from America. She said, "I was just
approached by this management company that wanted to take care of me,
set me up in a place where I can live, and put me up with different
people who can give me a legitimate job. I can find my own way
working in conjunction with this management company and I'm scheduled
to go to the United States."

As the musician was listening to this girl's story, he felt
something was not right. When he came back to America, he did a
little research and realized that this management company was a scam,
a way of bringing girls into the seamy world of human trafficking.
Being a musician, he wanted to give voice to these young girls who
didn't have a voice and who were pushed into this slavery-like
existence, being herded like cattle into work that abuses them, uses
them, and throws them out. He turned it into his calling to write
music about human trafficking and the atrocities that are taking
place. He connected with some journalists whom he implored to put
their lives on the line and go above and beyond the journalistic
ethic of not getting emotionally involved in any of their stories,
and he persuaded them to go undercover to the places where the
exploitation is taking place.

My friend was asked to create a documentary video on human
trafficking. He did just that, and he sent me his work, wanting my
input. When I saw the gravity of the exploitation that is taking
place, I was totally shocked. We hear bits and pieces about sex
slaves and the sex trade, sometimes in a New York Times column or a
little subtitle under a picture in the Daily News. But it's something
very far from us, or so we think. We definitely empathize with the
people who are suffering, but we don't do anything about it because
it's something seemingly so alien to most of us who are going about
our daily business of raising families, wanting to provide a good
home for our children.

But it was no longer remote when I looked at the documented
exploitation that is taking place. We're talking about girls as young
as three years old being sold as sex slaves. The video reveals the
alley that connects to the storefront, and behind the storefront we
see men in dark and dimly lit rooms where there are 20 to 30 young
girls, aged four to eight, and each of them is hoping she will be
sold to one of these men. The men were asking the girls unbelievable
things.

These girls were painfully young, of the age to be playing at
Gymboree, a McDonald's playground, or a playground in Central Park.
But they had been herded like animals into this dimly lit room and
they had been taught the "important" English, the kind that
would get them selected to be sold for that moment.

Because they're tiny children, the men customers, the johns, are
encouraged to ask these girls, "Do you 'boom-boom'?" They
are asking, "Do you 'boom-boom'?" to a 4-, 5-, 6-, 7- or
8-year old girl, meaning, "Do you have sexual intercourse with
whomever wants to buy you?" These girls are saying, "Yes,
yes, 'I boom-boom'" in English. "I 'boom-boom' really good.
Pick me, 'boom-boom'." This is not a fictional movie. This is
reality of what is taking place in the lives of a lot of young girls
all across the world.

As you're watching this, you realize why they're using baby
language like "boom-boom." The young girls who don't know
anything else, who don't know it's wrong, are thinking, "It's
something I have to do in order to get food, to have a place to
stay." The journalist was asking, "So you 'boom-boom'?"
"Yes, I 'boom-boom' good. Good boom-boom." The journalist
also asked, "Do you 'yum-yum'?" Meaning, do you provide
oral sex? And three girls rushed toward the journalist, grabbed his
leg and said, "Yes, 'yum-yum.' I 'yum-yum' really good."

When I saw that, I could not help but cry my eyes out because I
realized that something like this is taking place in the world. The
age at which these little girls are being asked to "boom-boom"
and "yum-yum" in different places like Cambodia, Vietnam,
Thailand, and the Philippines is getting younger each year. Their
users and abusers come to them from home countries far away. So the
Johns are away from their societies and families. They're away
because they're afraid of what their colleagues might say. They go to
these countries to exploit young girls. This is taking place with men
who may be our husbands, our sons, or our fathers.

When we see what is taking place in the world, we shouldn't be
lulled into thinking that this only takes place in far-away lands.
One of the fastest-growing problems in America is human trafficking,
even in the capital of our country, Washington, D.C., in the suburbs.
Young girls are being bought and sold right before our eyes.

When we think about the kind of exploitation that is taking place,
we have to ask ourselves a couple of things. We have to ask
ourselves, "Who are these men, these johns? Who are the people
who are giving money to these businesses that allow the businesses
not just to exist but to thrive incredibly – so much so that
there's a continual flow of innocent young girls, and boys, being
thrown into this kind of life. Their chances for a decent life are
ravaged from them at a very young age.

When we think about how the moral fiber of society has degenerated
to such an extent that we look the other way while all of this is
taking place, we have to ask ourselves some hard questions. If we
really want to change the world, if we really want to build ideal
families, if we really want to help people develop moral character –
which is really the only way we're going to solve these problems –
how are we going to do that? A lot of politicians say, "Well,
let's try a program where any time a john gets caught in the act, we
send a report to his family. Maybe that might have the john suffer
the consequences of his actions and make sure he doesn't do it
anymore."

Different countries have tried that method, trying to fix the
problem by punishing the effects of moral degeneration, and the end
result is always the same. Not only does it not stop the crime –
the johns continue doing what they're doing – but it drives the
operators and the brothels undercover. So these girls are put in more
severe situations that are worse and more difficult.

Preventing Sexual Exploitation

Small children being held in brothels is part of the larger
interconnected global sex industry. A lot of countries have had to
take a good look at themselves and ask, "How are we going to
solve this problem?" It's one of the biggest problems in every
country in our modern day, especially with the advent of the
Internet. When my generation was growing up and a young person wanted
access to pornography, it would have required the courage to go to a
shop and steal the magazine, or to get your friends to give it to
you, or to do something out of the ordinary to obtain materials like
that. But now on the Internet, pornography can be right at the
fingertips of any child.

I think a lot of parents are in denial when they think, "My
son is a healthy young man. Of course he would not buy things like
that, or look at things like that." Even though they're thinking
that might happen, many parents don't own up to the reality of the
situation or work through it with their son or daughter.

What we really need to do is to educate about what pornography
does to our civilization and where pornography comes from. Do our
children know where their money is going when they buy different
services on the Internet because they want a quick couple of hours of
access to all kinds of pornography? Do they know that it's helping to
fund the industry that continually exploits young men and young
women, as young as three years old?

We as a family need to talk to our children, to help them morally
reason through their immediate impulse of doing whatever they want on
the Internet. We need to help them think through the consequences of
their actions. Our children need to realize that every time they
click on the computer, go to that site, and buy some time, they are
giving money to people all around the world to continue to exploit,
abuse, and murder these young people who are starved for love and
affection, and often for physical food. Their families sell these
young people for a quick profit to put food on the table. Their
families are actually the ones that seize them as something to be
exploited. We need to be cognizant of what we are doing.

True Father often talks about how the greatest power in the
universe is love. Our church emphasizes the importance of the
blessing, and of having a loving relationship with your spouse and
your family. We emphasize the importance of preparing to be a great
spouse to the man or woman whom you are going to call your eternal
partner.

Father and Mother are giving something to the world that is
absolutely necessary. Every child that I saw being exploited in that
documentary film was born as an eternal son or daughter of God. They
are no different from you and me. They are no different from our
children. They could be your child's playmate. They could be the ones
you see on the playground. Because this industry that continually
preys and feasts on young men and women exists, we as a society need
to ask ourselves, "How do we tackle this monster? Do we try to
put it in ball and chains?" If we put it in ball and chains, it
will fight harder. It will fight more violently and viciously to
break out of the chains."

The only way we're going to solve this societal problem is by
addressing the root of the problem. The root of the problem is the
dysfunctionality of the home, the degeneration of the home because
within the home there is no concept of each individual as being a
holy son or daughter of God, of each child, every one of them, being
the handiwork of God.

If we are going to be a movement that's trying to usher in a world
of peace, love, and harmony, we need to be a movement that
exemplifies what we're saying. We need to give our children moral
education that helps them to reason through morally the consequences
of their actions. We need to help them realize that true love is much
more important than simply the gratification of sexual desire apart
from true love. In the context of a beautiful relationship between a
husband and wife, sexual love can be the most beautiful, most
fulfilling, most satisfying. But that's just it: in the right
context.

Our young people are inundated every day by different advertising
campaigns that tell them, "This is what a woman should look
like. This is what you need to be looking at when you look at a man."
The problem with pornography is that not only does it exploit men,
women, and young children, but it also teaches the watcher, the
audience, the viewer to look at human beings as body parts and not a
temple of God. Pornography perniciously and falsely repudiates the
truth that the human body is a divine temple where something as
beautiful as sexual love can be communicated and shared in the
context of a loving and beautiful relationship.

If we inundate ourselves with constant visual imagery of everybody
having sex – in pornography everybody is having sex – it
lowers our inhibitions. It makes us think that everybody is doing it
and therefore I should do it. It makes us think and teaches us to
look at another human being not as a human being, but as an object
that is a means of gratifying our own sexual impulses.

When pornography consumption is left unfettered, then pretty soon
a person can start thinking, "Okay, the Internet doesn't give me
an adrenaline rush any more. Let me go toward the real thing. Oh,
well, I want to travel abroad and basically take a tour." There
are sex tours available that take people to these countries for the
sole purpose of gratifying sexual desires and exploiting these
children from different countries. Many times people learn to think,
"Well, they don't look like me, so they're not really like me.
They're not my race, so maybe that other race was made to please me,
to gratify me, for me to exploit." There's a failure to realize
that the person you're exploiting happens to be a child of God as
well.

When we see what is taking place, we have to ask ourselves,
"What's going to happen in the lives of these victims?"
Victims come in all forms and sizes. It doesn't matter where you are.
Things like this are taking place every day. What can the victims do?
How are they going to rise up and get away from what they have
suffered through, and not turn into a ball of hate that hates the
world and the life that they're in, but somehow rise above it to look
at another day as an opportunity for life?

When we really think about what we need to do in terms of helping
these victims, we realize that the most important thing when we're
dealing with our family, with adolescents, with kids who might have a
severe problem with pornography, is that we as parents must
communicate directly with our children about their problem. We need
to take them aside and say, "You're a young healthy male or
female, and we know you're curious about your sexuality. But you need
to think about what you are doing. We need to talk through what you
are doing every time you log onto the Internet and you buy their
services. We need to ask ourselves hypothetically, what would you do
if that happened to be your daughter 20 years from now? What would
you do if the person that is turning you on on the Internet is your
sister? Would you want your sister to be in that production? Would
you want your sister or your family or your daughters to be exploited
like that?"

We have to help our children through a hypothetical of how they
might feel if what they are watching were to involve somebody who is
wonderfully dear to us. "If that production company was
exploiting my mother, my daughters, my sisters, how would I feel?"

We need to own up to the fact that if we want to change the world,
we have to be the agent of change. In the context of a family in
which we deal with the different issues that arise as we are trying
to become the glowing family that we so desire, we have to ask our
children and our young people to have a willingness to forgive
themselves. That is the first step in being the agent of change when
you're dealing with a monster like pornography on the Internet.

Healthy young men and women are going to be curious about
sexuality, but there's a difference between being curious and being
addicted to the problem. When we find ourselves being addicted to the
problem, we have to have the courage to look our fears and
insecurities in the face and say to ourselves, "I forgive you. I
forgive me for having done those things. But now that I have gone
through the moral reasoning as to why I do not want to do it, even if
my impulse is extremely powerful, I now know that every time I log
on, every time I buy the service, I am giving money to worldwide
institutionalized human trafficking, and I am helping and supporting
the exploitation of young men, young women, and children."

If we take a moment to think through what that tap on the computer
is going to do, by affecting hundreds and thousands of people's lives
all around the world, then any decent, conscientious person is going
to think twice about it. And any decent, conscientious person is
going to want to work through the addiction and difficulties so that
he or she can become a whole and healthy person preparing to have a
healthy sexual relationship with a very important and precious person
who will be his or her spouse. With that spouse, he or she is going
to build a beautiful family that is free of incest and abuse, and
filled with love in a nurturing, supportive environment that can
usher in and raise children who are worthy of bringing in this new
millennium.

So brothers and sisters, we need to help our young people and our
husbands, our brothers, and our fathers think through what is taking
place in their lives if they choose to touch that button, if they
choose to throw money that way. We need to make them face the
reality, "Do you really want to support an industry that teaches
a 4-, 5-, 6-, 7-, 8-year-old child, 'I boom-boom well' and 'I yum-yum
well'?"

Any decent person, anybody with a conscience, no matter how
powerful your sexual desire at that time might be, cannot say, "I
don't care about those young girls, I don't care about those young
boys." Anybody who has a conscience, who knows him- or her-self
as an eternal son or daughter of God, cannot say, "I don't
care."

So, there has to be a willingness, first and foremost, to look my
problem in the face and forgive myself. I need to forgive before I
can make the next step.

And for the next step, we have to tell ourselves, "Living for
the sake of others is really an opportunity to practice mind over
body." We have to practice mind over body, and one of the most
difficult things is dealing with sexual desire. How do I practice
mind over body? Instead of looking at that woman as body parts, I
look at that woman as a beautiful daughter of God, as somebody's
sister, as somebody's future mother, as somebody who deserves to be
honored for her dignity as a divine child of God.

Loving Ourselves and Others as Divine Human Beings

How do we practice that in our daily lives? We practice that by
applying and practicing and exercising mind over body. That's why
Lovin' Life Ministries has introduced ballroom dancing, and for the
first time in our church encourages male and female contact.
Basically what we are trying to do is to help young people look at
each other not as body parts, not as something to be taken, abused,
manipulated, and used for personal exploitation, but as beautiful
children of God, beautiful sisters and brothers with whom a wonderful
time can be had so long as there is a mutual honoring of each other
as a beautiful handiwork of God.

Yes, when you put a whole group of attractive young men and women
together, there are going to be crushes. They are going to be
checking each other out; they are going to be looking. But if we can
encourage healthy social interaction with the opposite sex, stressing
at the same time the need to look at each other not as something to
exploit but something to honor, something to respect, something to
celebrate, then we can teach our young people not to look at each
other as body parts, but to appreciate a sister and a brother as a
partner for a wonderful time together on the dance floor. Young men
can learn how to talk to a woman, and young women can learn how to
talk to a man, so socially and emotionally they can be prepared for a
healthy relationship when they go towards the blessing.

I've known a lot of blessed couples and blessed children who have
no ability to communicate once they are married because they've never
had any social interaction with the opposite sex. Many of them before
the blessing have gone through periods when they were severely
addicted to pornography. They were feeling overwhelmingly guilty and
unable to forgive themselves, so they didn't know how to rid
themselves of their problem. When such people are blessed, their
problem follows them into the marriage, into the new relationship,
into a blessed relationship.

So healthy interactions and learning how to look at the power of
sexuality in a healthy, holistic way are necessary to prepare our
children to have great experience and loving relationships in the
context of a marriage. Let's all move in that direction by
encouraging our youth and our fathers, mothers, sisters, and
brothers, first and foremost to be agents of change. "Be your
own change that you want to see in the world," says Gandhi.

Tell yourself, "I am going to practice mind over body. I am
going to practice love. I am going to apply true love in my life by
learning to be a person who is not like a radioactive substance let
loose out in the wilderness. I am going to be that contained,
properly channeled, powerful source of energy and love that I want to
share with the world. And I want to start loving. I want to start
practicing true love in my life by deciding first and foremost to
forgive myself."

Another thing we all need to think about in raising families and
combating this problem that we're all dealing with on different
levels and in different segments of our lives is the importance of
realizing that once we forgive and once we decide to practice true
love, there has to be a level of commitment, mind over body. Not only
are we going to practice love, but we're going to practice commitment
to this decision that we made every day.

What else are we going to do other than forgive and love? We're
going to learn how to unite – in the sense that we are going to
learn how to work together with the opposite sex in a healthy way.
We're going to learn how to work as fathers and mothers, as brothers
and sisters, as different members of the family, respecting each
others' divinity, respecting each other as a temple of God. Instead
of thinking, "How can I exploit this relationship? How can I
manipulate the situation," we're going to think of ways we can
work together to deal with problems, including addiction to
pornography.

We're going to start telling ourselves, "I am going to start
changing my life. I am going to forgive myself first and foremost. I
am going to release myself from the bondage of guilt that I have
placed myself under. Then I am going to take myself out of the
closet, look my guilt and insecurity in the face, and say, 'You know
what? Starting from today I'm going to love. I am going to love those
girls who have no future. I am going to love those girls who have no
voice. I am going to love them as my divine sister, as my divine
daughter, as my divine mother – and I'm going to do that by
honoring them as the beautiful feminine that they are. I am going to
decide not to further exploit them by basically utilizing them to
satisfy my immediate sexual impulses – whether in that day or
that hour or that minute.

"Then I'm going to tell myself, 'Not only am I going to love
them, I'm going to unite my family around me. I'm going to unite my
society around me. I'm going to unite my world around me, and I'm
going to stress the importance of moral education and moral
reasoning, the ability to think through what we are confronted with,
the ability to act not just impulsively but after asking ourselves
the question, if we act, what will it result in?"

And if we clearly know that exploitation of this kind results in
4-, 5-, 6-, and 7-year-old girls learning what "boom-boom"
and "yum-yum" means, then we have to work together as a
society to raise healthy young men and women who have the ability to
practice mind over body, and the power and depth to deal with their
impulses by pushing that energy through a constructive channel in the
context of a beautiful loving relationship. That is the only way we
are going to change the world. That is the only way we are going to
liberate these women and men.

Waking Up and Tackling Reality

Brothers and sisters, the human trafficking problems in the
Philippines, Thailand, the Southeast Asian countries, and Africa are
not worlds apart, because we all belong to one family. When one is
exploited, we are all exploited. When one is abused, we all are
abused. When one is manipulated, we all are manipulated, because that
suffering person is not just an island unto him-or herself. That
person has friends, colleagues, and families who are affected by that
person's life.

The documentary was especially heart-wrenching in the scene where
my friend zoomed in on one girl who is 12 years old, who'd been set
to work ever since she was five. He filmed her in the squalor of this
extremely tiny room with painfully dirty, dingy, sheets looking like
they had not been washed for centuries. But he zoomed in on this girl
because she had her walls filled with all the great singers of the
world – Brittany Spears, Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen,
and others. When you see the walls, you realize she's no different
from any other 12-year-old girl who is excited about her favorite
artist, her favorite singer.

This girl in this dingy, squalid room was living a reality that
was fantasy for her. It was something she conjured up. It's like the
movie Matrix, in which we don't know what is true and what is not
true; we don't know what is reality and what is not reality. When we
are hooked up to a pod, we think that's the real existence, but then
everything that we see or experience in the movie Matrix is a
manufactured or created reality that we experience as real. In one
sense what the girl is doing was exactly like that.

The life in a brothel, the life of a young child prostitute is
like being hooked up to a pod through which you're not really living.
You're basically sleeping your life away. She's like the walking
dead. That world is so foreign to her, so she has manufactured this
alternative reality, where she lives in a fantasy world, where she's
being entertained by these different artists. You realize more and
more that not just this girl in a brothel somewhere in Southeast Asia
but a lot of our youngsters are living that Matrix-like existence, in
the sense that the real world is too painful, too difficult. It's
much easier to lie apart and sleep life away while you live a fantasy
life that you manufacture for yourself.

Sooner or later each of has to deal with the question, when does
fantasy override reality? When does reality cease to exist? When do I
cease to exist? Because without my fantasy I am in essence dead, I am
in essence not living. We realize that the pod can represent many
different things for a lot of people. It can represent a life that we
no longer are facing because it's just too difficult. Some of the
issues that arise in the family are too difficult. It's much easier
to sleep in our pod, to sleep through our reality because we've
created this alter-fantasy-like reality where we don't really tackle
the problems that are in our family. We don't tackle the problems
that exist amongst our kids because we've created a world where we
don't have to.

But the whole point of developing and building ideal families is
that we have to unhook ourselves from the past and start living the
reality that we want to substantiate. That pod can be an addiction of
sorts, to denial. That pod can represent total denial of what's
taking place in our families. It can represent maybe a career that we
are so engrossed in but we're not really living. We are functioning,
but we're not really living.

But what God invests for and hopes for in all of us is for us to
fulfill the destiny or blueprint that he had for every one of us. We
were not meant to just sleep through our lives, hooked up to some
kind of pod. We were not meant to just create fantasies out of our
realities. We were meant to create a reality, a real life, real life
that is tangible, with the good and the bad, with the joys along with
the tribulations. We were meant to create a reality that helps us rub
up against each other and helps us grow as deep, strong,
compassionate, and profound sons and daughters of God.

Having the Courage to Work on Oneself

The Bible says in Isaiah 40:31,
"For those of you who have hope will have renewed strength. You
will soar like the eagle, you will run without growing weary, and you
will walk without growing faint."

The Bible means by this that there is a way out of our obsessive
and addictive behaviors. The change starts in finding hope in the
Lord, by developing a relationship with the divine, by reclaiming our
relationship with our heavenly Father, and then we will soar on the
wings of eagles. We will have the courage to soar. And the
interesting thing about eagles is that eagles do not fly in flocks.
They have the courage to fly alone, to face their fears and fly
alone.

Regardless of what we struggle through in life, there are moments
when we do things together as a group, or as a family. But sometimes
when we're dealing with our own demons, really working on our own
mind and body unity, we need to learn how to fly, how to soar alone,
majestically like an eagle. We need to run toward the destinies that
are waiting for us and not grow weary. And we need to learn how to
walk without growing faint.

I often like to say, "Whenever I decide to take a walk
because I would like some fresh air, the initial feeling of walking
away from home is wonderfully liberating, but after a fantastic walk
there is nothing like the feeling you get when you're on your way
home, when you've decided, I'm going to come home." At another
level, there is nothing like the feeling you get when you've decided,
I'm going to forgive myself; I'm going to reclaim my relationship
with my God, my Heavenly Parent, and I am going to run back home to
my Heavenly Father, or I am going to walk my way back home to my
Heavenly Father. I am going to have the courage to work on myself, to
fly solo, to work on my individual responsibility for mind over body.
We all can know these feelings because ultimately it doesn't matter
where we are in life or where we go, we always want to come back
home.

Sun
Myung Moon, Hak Ja Han, and Hyung Jin Moon, May 21, 2011

Brothers and sisters, we need to realize that we are living in an
incredible time with our True Parents, the incredible time of the
breaking news. But we also need to realize that this is not just the
time when we are to share the breaking news, it's also the time when
we need to start looking at the different things we're dealing with
and give each other the tools to work through these problems. We need
to encourage our youth to forgive, love and unite, and help them
overcome their difficulties or their addiction or their obsession by
helping them to walk the road of moral reasoning to realize that
their actions may be ones that support, feed, and give money to an
industry that preys on the future of our world. Children are our
future. They need to be a generation of peace, not a generation of
exploited young men and women.

This is the reason why True Parents are so extremely important at
this time. They're not here to bandage the effects of the problems
society is dealing with; they are here to address the roots of the
problem. They're here to clean up from the beginning, from the root
of all the societal ills that result from dysfunctional families. So
the work that we all do in dealing with our families is strongly
contributing to building this ideal world because if we can be
responsible for each family, one family at a time, as a cornerstone
or building block of our society, then the world that we so long for
is within our hands.

Brothers and sisters, talk to your family. Encourage your family.
Encourage everyone to forgive, love and unite, and know that we are
living in a blessed time. This is a time when we can heal, when we
can actually heal the wounds that are separating our children, that
are separating us from our parents and from our relatives. A whole
lot of healing needs to take place if we want to usher the world
toward that beautiful world of peace, love, and harmony.

There's a wonderful quote that the famous Persian poet, Rumi, said
to his beloved. He said, "There's a moon in all of us. Learn how
to live with it as your companion." There is a moon in all of us
in that our father and mother, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon and Dr. Hak Ja
Han Moon, have taught us well, and their teachings live in all of our
lives. All we have to do is to appreciate those teachings, become a
great companion to them, grow together, start building something
wonderful, and change our world in the process by changing ourselves.

So brothers and sisters, have a wonderful Sunday, and let's all go
home to our Heavenly Parent. Thank you.

Notes:

Isaiah, chapter 40

1: Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.

2: Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,and cry to herthat her
warfare is ended,that her iniquity is pardoned,that she has
received from the LORD's handdouble for all her sins.

3: A voice cries:"In the wilderness prepare the way of
the LORD,make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

4: Every valley shall be lifted up,and every mountain and hill
be made low;the uneven ground shall become level,and the
rough places a plain.

5: And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed,and all flesh
shall see it together,for the mouth of the LORD has spoken."

6: A voice says, "Cry!"And I said, "What shall
I cry?"All flesh is grass,and all its beauty is like the
flower of the field.

7: The grass withers, the flower fades,when the breath of the
LORD blows upon it;surely the people is grass.

8: The grass withers, the flower fades;but the word of our God
will stand for ever.

9: Get you up to a high mountain,O Zion, herald of good
tidings;lift up your voice with strength,O Jerusalem, herald
of good tidings,lift it up, fear not;say to the cities of
Judah,"Behold your God!"

10: Behold, the Lord GOD comes with might,and his arm rules
for him;behold, his reward is with him,and his recompense
before him.

11: He will feed his flock like a shepherd,he will gather the
lambs in his arms,he will carry them in his bosom,and gently
lead those that are with young.

12: Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his handand
marked off the heavens with a span,enclosed the dust of the earth
in a measureand weighed the mountains in scalesand the hills
in a balance?

13: Who has directed the Spirit of the LORD,or as his
counselor has instructed him?

14: Whom did he consult for his enlightenment,and who taught
him the path of justice,and taught him knowledge,and showed
him the way of understanding?

15: Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket,and are
accounted as the dust on the scales;behold, he takes up the isles
like fine dust.

16: Lebanon would not suffice for fuel,nor are its beasts
enough for a burnt offering.

17: All the nations are as nothing before him,they are
accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness.

18: To whom then will you liken God,or what likeness compare
with him?

19: The idol! a workman casts it,and a goldsmith overlays it
with gold,and casts for it silver chains.

20: He who is impoverished chooses for an offeringwood that
will not rot;he seeks out a skilful craftsmanto set up an
image that will not move.

21: Have you not known? Have you not heard?Has it not been
told you from the beginning?Have you not understood from the
foundations of the earth?

22: It is he who sits above the circle of the earth,and its
inhabitants are like grasshoppers;who stretches out the heavens
like a curtain,and spreads them like a tent to dwell in;

23: who brings princes to nought,and makes the rulers of the
earth as nothing.

24: Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown,scarcely has
their stem taken root in the earth,when he blows upon them, and
they wither,and the tempest carries them off like stubble.

25: To whom then will you compare me,that I should be like
him? says the Holy One.

26: Lift up your eyes on high and see:who created these?He
who brings out their host by number,calling them all by name;by
the greatness of his might,and because he is strong in powernot
one is missing.

27: Why do you say, O Jacob,and speak, O Israel,"My
way is hid from the LORD,and my right is disregarded by my God"?

28: Have you not known? Have you not heard?The LORD is the
everlasting God,the Creator of the ends of the earth.He does
not faint or grow weary,his understanding is unsearchable.

29: He gives power to the faint,and to him who has no might he
increases strength.

30: Even youths shall faint and be weary,and young men shall
fall exhausted;

31: but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their
strength,they shall mount up with wings like eagles,they
shall run and not be weary,they shall walk and not faint.